“When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put great effort into the blowing of the shofar—he would go red in the face with exertion—produced a long, seemingly endless note of unearthly beauty, and then dropped dead before us on the bema, the raised platform where he would sing. I had the feeling that God had killed Schechter, sent a thunderbolt, stricken him. The shock of this for everyone was tempered by the reflection that if there was ever a moment in which a soul was pure, forgiven, relieved of all sin, it was at this moment, when the shofar was blown in conclusion of the fast […].”

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 177

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put …" by Oliver Sacks?
Oliver Sacks photo
Oliver Sacks 18
British neurologist and writer 1933–2015

Related quotes

Lev Leviev photo

“The moment you ask a child in Israel what Yom Kippur means to him, and he answers the Yom Kippur War, or a fun day on a bicycle — then I don’t know if that is Zionism or whatever you call it, but it has certainly become bankrupt”

Lev Leviev (1956) Soviet-born Israeli businessman, philanthropist and investor

Interview, Jewish Chronicle, 7 March 2008 http://thejc.com/home.aspx?AId58607&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrLev%20leviev&srchtxt1&srchhead1&srchauthor1&srchsandp1&scsrch0

Tamora Pierce photo
Frances Bean Cobain photo
Cassandra Clare photo
James Patterson photo

“Fang was going to kill me. And after I was dead, he would kill me again.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Esther M. Friesner photo
Werner Herzog photo
Frances Bean Cobain photo

“No. I would have felt more awkward if I'd been a fan. I was around 15 when I realized he was inescapable. Even if I was in a car and had the radio on, there's my dad. He's larger than life and our culture is obsessed with dead musicians. We love to put them on a pedestal. If Kurt had just been another guy who abandoned his family in the most awful way possible… But he wasn't. He inspired people to put him on a pedestal, to become St. Kurt.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

Response to the question, "Did you feel awkward as a teenager, not being that interested in the music Kurt made?"
" Frances Bean Cobain on Life After Kurt's Death: An Exclusive Q&A http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/frances-bean-life-after-kurt-cobain-death-exclusive-interview-20150408" (2015)

Related topics